1. Purpose of the Invention
This invention relates in general to certain new and useful improvements in lock release mechanisms utilizable in vehicles for preventing theft, and, more particularly, to lock release mechanisms which are operated in conjunction with safety interlock systems designed to prevent theft or other unauthorized removal of automotive vehicles and like apparatus.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, theft of automotive vehicles has become quite prevalent and, in fact, has given rise to large-scale businesses based on stealing and resale of such automotive vehicles. In order to obviate this problem, various manufacturers of automotive vehicles and, in addition, various suppliers of safety systems and theft-prevention systems and the like have proposed alarm systems for use in these vehicles which advise of the potential theft or otherwise unauthorized removal of the vehicle. These alarm systems generally rely upon electronic sound alarms which are generated upon unauthorized attempts of removal. However, one skilled in these particular alarm systems is capable of short-circuiting the alarm system or otherwise removing the vehicle in such manner as to obviate the generation of the alarm signal.
There have been many proposals for safety interlock systems which employ encoded switching systems which must be actuated prior to operation of the vehicle. These encoded switch systems operate as a combination switch which is designed to prevent operation of the engine of the vehicle until such time as a proper electrical signal has been introduced into the switching system in order to energize the same. The signal is an enabling signal which is generated when a plurality of switches has been actuated in proper sequence. These switching systems are designed to control the various operable components of the vehicle and particularly the electrically operable components such as, for example, the starter solenoid of the vehicle. Thus, when the preestablished code is introduced into the system, the starter solenoid is enabled.
One of the primary disadvantages of these safety interlock systems resides in the fact that a typical automotive thief may open the hood of the vehicle in order to disenable the safety interlock system. Otherwise, if the thief is unable to disenable the safety interlock system, the thief can typically obviate or bypass the safety interlock system and thereby steal the vehicle.
Most automotive vehicles presently employ some form of hood lock mechanism such as the hood lock mechanism which may be opened from the exterior of the vehicle. In other types of automotive vehicles, the hood lock can only be opened from the interior of the vehicle, such as in the passenger compartment. In the event that the doors of the vehicle leading into the passenger compartment were not locked, then a thief would have easy access to open the hood lock release and thereby the compartment to disenable any safety interlock system. In addition, the thief may otherwise easily steal any of the components forming part of the engine system of the vehicle or the entire vehicle itself.
There have also been several proposed lock release mechanisms operable with the lock device included with the vehicle. These lock release mechanisms included a lock which operated the locking device of the vehicle on the hood leading into the engine compartment when the engine was started.
The typical type of electrically operable lock release mechanism which operates the hood lock comprises a housing having a pair of spaced apart walls with a locking pin extending out of one of the walls. A wedge or plunger is introduced into the space between these walls and when the pin was retracted, the wedge would be fully inserted into the space and thereby locked when the pin was released to engage an upper surface on the wedge. Thus, when a solenoid was energized pursuant to starting of the ignition of the vehicle, the pin would be retracted and, in this way, the wedge could be removed. Nevertheless, if the solenoid was not properly energized pursuant to the energization of the ignition system of the vehicle, the pin remained in its locking position, thereby permitting removal of the wedge which was, in turn, connected to the hood of the vehicle.
The primary disadvantage of this type of electrically energizable hood release mechanism resided in the fact that it is difficult to align the wedge or plunger with the pin. It can be observed that it is difficult to align the plunger with the pin when the hood was closed primarily due to the fact that the plunger moved through an arc with the closing of the hood. Thus, the mechanics installing the device could not properly align the plunger with the opening between the two walls when the hood was almost in the closed position. The difficulty of aligning the plunger with the opening also was increased due to the fact that it was often difficult to find a proper location in which to install the plunger so that it could be dropped into the opening in proper alignment. Another one of the disadvantages of this type of device is that if the hood was sprung due to an automobile accident or other condition, the hood could not be closed, and if one attempted to close the hood when the plunger was not in proper alignment, it would tend to jam the entire device and even result in damage to the lock release mechanism.
Due to the difficulties of properly installing these prior art lock release mechanisms, it has been found that the hood lock release device cannot be properly opened if the hood lock release mechanism is not properly mounted.